Interest in finding sustainable methods to produce energy and chemicals continues to increase in the face of concerns that anthropogenic carbon emissions may be responsible for global climate change. Among the options being considered is the use of biomass to feed chemical production via the output of gasification reactions. This process has appeal since the processes first developed more than a century ago for coal gasification can be applied to practically any biomass input, and the subsequent conversion of the resulting syngas to fuels or chemicals by well established processes has the potential to provide a diverse range of more sustainable chemical products.
However, a drawback to gasification technology is that it is relatively inefficient in terms of the percentage of the biomass carbon input to the gasifier that is actually incorporated into the desired end products, typically, less than 50%. This is due in large part to the fact that coal and biomass-derived syngas has a low H2 to CO ratio (typically around ˜0.7) and must be upgraded by water gas shift reaction (WGSR) prior to utilization in downstream processes such as Fischer Tropsch (FT) or Methanol-to-olefins (MTO) synthesis that typically requires a H2:CO ratio around 2. The water gas shift process entails the reaction of a water molecule with a carbon monoxide molecule (from the syngas), producing CO2 and hydrogen.CO+H2OCO2+H2 
The resulting CO2 (22 kg CO2 per kg of H2 produced) is emitted to the atmosphere and erodes the carbon efficiency and environmental benefit of biomass gasification technologies. Furthermore, the water required for the WGSR process could otherwise be consumed or used in agriculture, and the residual water returned from the process is unfit for those uses without further purification.
A related situation exists for conversion of carbonaceous feedstocks to produce pure hydrogen streams for use in chemical production (e.g. ammonia production) or for use as a fuel. Here, the preferred process is methane steam reforming (MSR): CH4+H2OCO+3 H2. Again, the gas stream produced by MSR is typically treated by WGSR to increase the hydrogen content. However, rather than being converted to valuable chemicals, the CO from MSR is instead converted to CO2 which is then released to the atmosphere.
The present invention provides solutions to these and related problems.